


Moonbase Alpha

by horrorterroronesie



Series: a realistic simulation of life on a natural satellite [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post Season 15, but like if s16 doesnt happen, disjointed scenes, homestuck i guess - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 16:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14060889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horrorterroronesie/pseuds/horrorterroronesie
Summary: There aren't many things one can do in the hospital while recovering from dehydration and sleep deprivation. Carolina manages.





	1. Act 1

Dr. Grey smiles, managing to give off the impression of being in flagrant disrespect of one’s personal space while not moving an inch. Florida could do that too, Carolina thinks woozily.

“Wash was- he was shot. Through the throat. Shouldn’t he get priority? I’m fine, I swear.” Her own voice sounds very far away, but she agrees with what it’s saying. Surely sleep deprivation and dehydration pale against a gaping hole in someone’s throat. Right? Dr. Grey is talking again, but she misses the beginning of her sentence.

“-and the moral of that story iiis, if you move one single pretty finger from your hospital bed, I won’t hesitate to put you in a medically induced coma! Got that?” She nods. Her eyes are beginning to sting, so she closes them. She just doesn’t open them again. Grey chuckles, her footsteps fading into the distance as the door shuts.

 

\-- 

 

She wakes up slowly. Her eyes flicker open, then slide shut again. The clock on her heart-rate monitor says it’s-

 

She wakes up very quickly, all of a sudden.  _ Fourteen hours? _ They let her sleep that long? Pushing herself up in the hospital bed, she looks around. The room is empty, sunlight filtering through the beige-ish curtain over the only window. There’s some sort of commotion outside, a gruff voice yelling something inaudible.

  
Carolina looks at the clock for a while, heart racing. Had something happened? Nobody comes in, however. She redirects her attention at the floor. Then she memorizes the pattern of tiles on the ceiling. She must fall asleep at some point, because the next thing she knows is the door slamming open.

  
She sits bolt upright again, ignoring the way her head spins. Outside the door is a clamouring of different voices, still talking. 

  
“Agent Kitchensink is awake!” Caboose is the first one to rush in, jumping animatedly. “He still can’t talk because his throat is sideways now, but he is okay and not dead!” It’s like all the strength just drains from her at that, letting her head thump against the wall. 

“Th- Thanks for telling me that, Caboose.” She gives him a weak smile, which he reciprocates tenfold. He waves to someone outside, and she catches a flash of orange and maroon, among others, as what is presumably the entirety of Red Team falls over each other in the effort to stay out of sight; lest they show emotion. She sighs, slipping down into sleep yet again.

 

\--

 

She dreams. A bullet wound to the throat. Unable to talk.  _ Again. _ She gives Epsilon to Wash this time, not Sigma and Maine, and it’s all her fault when Epsilon breaks himself apart in his mind, and the Meta now is her, her and Locus and Temple and Texas, and Eta and Iota are tearing themselves from her neck, and she’s falling, and Eps- and Church is falling to pieces again and again and again and

 

She gasps awake. Dr. Grey is beside her, noting down the data on the monitors. She looks sympathetic. 

“I’m sorry you didn’t hear it from me, but I was in the middle of some quite  _ delicate  _ operations on dear Agent Washington! I do believe he’ll make a full recovery, but he definitely isn’t going to be walking around any time soon!” She’s unnervingly chipper. The news is good, though- the cold feeling from the nightmare lessens with every word.

“Now… How are you holding up, Agent?”

 

\-- 

  
  
“A  _ WEEK? _ ” Carolina squawks incredulously. A week in the hospital? She wasn’t even injured significantly. Dr. Grey looks at her, smile fixed in place.

“Now, remember what I said about the medically-induced coma?” 

She splutters indignantly.

“And how many weeks does Wash get?”   
“Six! Of course, between you and me, he would be able to leave after four! But we both know if I told him four, he would be out doing something incredibly foolhardy after barely two weeks had passed!” She giggles to herself. Carolina looks on, pensive.

“Does that mean I can-”   
“Oh, absolutely not!”


	2. Act 2

The worst thing, she ruminates, is the silence. Her room of the hospital is dead silent, devoid of any noise from outside. The monitors don’t even beep. She spends the first two days in a half-asleep daze, but after that the silence becomes more grating with every second she spends in it. More than once, she finds herself reaching out to the back of her mind to talk to- but he’s gone. She’s alone in her head, has been for months. At some point the time she’s spent alone will be longer than the time he spent implanted, she knows. She wishes it would never happen.

 

\--

 

Grif comes into the room on the third day. She’s half a minute from putting her fist through a wall in boredom, so it’s a welcome- if unexpected- change.

“Holy shit, have you just been looking at the ceiling all this time? Alone? That sucks. And I know that sucks because I was alone, you know, but I wasn’t in bed all the time and I had the internet and things. D’you want me to smuggle you a tablet? ‘Cause I can totally do that, no problem. Do you have any pudding cups left over?” He looks at her, eyes wide. 

He… wasn’t like this when they left him. She’s seen the effects of isolation before, but she hadn’t thought that- 

That was just it. She hadn’t thought anything. She had just waltzed away because of a doctored recording.

“Does me having pudding cups or not have anything to do with how quickly you get me that tablet?”

“Uh,” He glances around, body language ridiculously legible. “I’ll get it to you anyway, but if you just so happened to have some it could maybe be a bit faster?”

“And how fast would it get here if I didn’t have any pudding cups?”

“Let’s say… two weeks.” 

“Wh- I’ll already be out of the hospital in two weeks!” He seems to calm down at the lack of grievous bodily harm she appears to be inflicting.

“Well, that’s your problem.” He shrugs, turning away. In a momentary lapse of judgement, she grabs two of the pudding cups she had been stockpiling under her blankets and hurls them at his head. He yelps, turning and picking them up from the floor with a speed she didn’t know he possessed. 

“It’ll be here tomorrow,” he says. She tosses him a third one. “Never mind, you’re getting it in an hour. Pleasure doing business with you,” He opens one of the pudding cups even as he pushes the door open with his leg.

 

\--

 

Dr. Grey comes to visit before she gets the tablet she was promised. She bustles around again, checking her vitals and humming to herself.

“Say, I just so happened to notice you haven’t been doing much here! Strict bed rest doesn’t mean you can’t do anything at all! Just that you can’t do most things that you normally do,” She advises Carolina. “Physical activity does appear to be one of your more major hobbies!”

 

\--

 

As promised, barely an hour later she has a tablet in her hands. It is at this moment Carolina realizes she doesn’t really know what to do with this newfound power of online...ness.

Picking one of the icons on the home screen at random, she opens BaseBook. Wasn’t this the social network Simmons had developed? It seems to have grown with the inclusion of both the Fed and Rebel armies in their time on Chorus, but she doesn’t think it could have more users outside of- 

The login screen shows 500,000 people online. Huh. Someone apparently took the liberty of setting up a profile for her, because she’s redirected to the dashboard immediately. There’s a list of topics, along with the instructions to choose what she was interested in.

  
What was she interested in? Hell if she knew. Between Project Freelancer and her activities during the Chorus Civil War, she hadn’t had any time or reason to pursue anything extraneous since teenagerhood. Even on the retirement moon, with the ill-fated band and Grif’s “lessons”, she had barely done anything without some outside influence.

 

Teenagerhood, then. What kind of things did she like? Kendo, mostly, as well as track and- 

It hits her then. Biting back a laugh, she types in a website address.

  



	3. Act 3

Simmons pays Carolina a visit barely two hours later. 

The door opens abruptly, causing her to fumble with the tablet. It continues to play slightly tinny music from its speaker, her having not received a pair of earphones along with it.

Simmons freezes. [A shitty vocal rendition of the guitar solo from “How Do I Live”, itself from the movie Con Air,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NtMgUpnXeU) continues to play in the silence. Michael Guy Bowman sings a haunting refrain as John reunites with his loving wife and daughter, dishing out bunnies left and right.

She is the first to speak.

“This… Uh…” This may well be one of the strangest situations she’s been discovered in. She has a reputation to uphold, damn it.

“It’s not what it looks like?” She tries. He makes a weird squeaking noise, face visibly heating up.

“It’s Locus,” He says. “He’s outside and wants to talk to you, but nobody knew if you were awake or not. Grif… probably knew, but I have no idea where he is.” He pauses, evaluating the merits and risks of whatever he’s about to say. The flash has wound down, music fading out as a replay button blinks on the screen.

“Is that… Homestuck?” Well, there goes any chance of ever being considered intimidating, ever again. She feels her own face heat up, looking like a kid caught stealing candy from the proverbial bowl. She never did that- any candy she got was bought with her own money.

“That’s… um. Can you just- Yeah. I’m re-reading it,” She offers, more awkward with each passing second.

“Oh, that’s great! It’s always gratifying finding the foreshadowing early on,” He says, suddenly enthused. “I’ve read it five times already!” She really should have pegged him as the type. She hasn’t spent much time around Red Team as a whole, what with Sarge yelling at her for being a traitor. Apparently, her dyed red hair and teal armour form a paradox so strong she should have imploded by now.

“Well, I should probably let Locus in.” Simmons turns away. The door shuts, but not quickly enough to hide his strangled, disbelieving yelp.

“ _ Homestuck??!?” _

Yeah, there goes her gravitas.

 

\--

 

The conversation with Locus goes… well. For a given value, sure. The man seems genuinely changed, whatever that entails. He doesn’t apologize, but Carolina’s grateful for it. To believe that would even come close to fixing anything- 

 

Yeah. She has her own problems. And she can relate, at least a little.

 

\--

 

Four days in and she’s reached Act Six. The first time around, she was reading this as it came out. She was fifteen, angry and bitter and desperate for praise. Desperate for acknowledgement, really. Desperate for anything other than stony silence and a rotating cast of babysitters. Even then, the moment she turned 13 those dried up to be replaced with a maid to cook the meals. Hell knows her dad wouldn’t. 

She would have hours to herself in their house, an oppressive blanket of silence covering every move she made. 

 

The friends she made through Homestuck were the only reprieve she had. It was what kept her alive sometimes. Thinking about the Lalonde manor, huge and empty and forbidding. It seems insignificant now- coping mechanisms for something that pales in comparison to what she copes with now.

Feels weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jsyk i retconned andrew hussie to live in the future. this is how carolina was reading hs as it came out


	4. Act 4

Nobody comes in again until the sixth day. This time it’s Tucker, sidling through the half-open door with his shoulders hunched. Guilty for spending the last five days at Washington’s bedside like a character in a soap opera, probably. York would-

She cuts off that train of thought right there. 

 

“Uh…” Tucker starts. “You’re okay, right?”

“Yes, Tucker. I’m  _ fine.”  _

He sags. “Okay, cool, ‘cause I can’t deal with both of the two competent people here being out of commission,” He says. “I don’t trust Locu- Locusses? Locusts? I don’t trust his whole redemption schtick.”

She eyes him contemplatively.

“You think he’s doing the same thing as Felix.” He twitches at the mention, looking away.

“The other way around, I guess. We thought he was on our side, and he ended up being a huge evil douche. Now, we  _ know _ , for  _ certain,  _ from  _ experience,  _ that Locus is evil. And now he’s trying to bullshit us!” Tucker throws his hands up in the air. 

 

She sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

“Tucker.” 

“Oh, don’t you Tucker me!”

“He saved our lives. Earth would be dust if he hadn’t come to help us.”

“And you think that makes up for the people he’s killed?”

 

Her fist hits the wall before she consciously moves it.

“ _No, Tucker,_ I don’t think it _makes up for the people he’s killed! Nothing goddamn ‘makes up’ for that!_ You think I haven’t killed an innocent person?” She growls out. “Or Wash? _Or you?_ That’s not something that can be _forgiven!”_ She looks up at his standing form. His eyes are wide, eyebrows brought together in what could turn to anger any moment. 

 

He opens his mouth. Closes it. 

He turns around and walks out the door.

 

\--

 

Her breathing is heavy, heart beating a staccato melody in her chest.

It’s far too quiet.

Carolina leans her head back against the cold wall, breathing out. There’s not a good answer to this. There was never a good answer to anything she needed to do. 

 

“Agent Carolina?” She startles, jerking back in the bed. The reporter- Ms. Andrews?- stands awkwardly in the doorway. She doesn’t have any armour on, though that has been the norm since they arrived here. Her dark hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, and her face is carefully blank.

Carolina sits up, running a hand through her hair. Eugh. Lying in bed five days straight isn’t conducive to a good hairstyle.

“Sorry, I was just thinking. What is it?” 

“Ah, just the matter of permission for the content in the article-”   
“Yeah, sure.” The reporter seems a little put out, but Carolina’s head is pounding with the beginnings of a headache.

“I also wanted you to know that you and the Reds and Blues have been cleared of all charges.” Ah.

“Thank you. The Blues and Reds were apprehended? Temple, at least?” She amends.

Ms. Andrews nods. 

“Right.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to go folks!


	5. Act 5

It’s late on the last day when Dr. Grey releases her. The first thing she does is ask her for Wash’s room number- wait, no, she takes a shower first. The first _important_ thing she does is go to Wash’s room.

He’s awake when she enters, propped up in the bed with thick bandages and tubing lining his throat. Seeing her, he attempts to smile. The effect is not particularly inspiring since he winces at the motion. Carolina makes a small sound, some aborted platitude.

Wash picks up the tablet lying on his lap, typing furiously.

 _“Stop thinking about the thing you’re thinking about, full stop. It’s not your fault, full stop.”_ A robotic voice reads.

He pauses.

_“Neither was Maine, full stop.”_

And the sound of his name, when they had been dancing around the subject since the Staff Of Charon, makes her give up the distance between them and collapse in the chair at Wash’s bedside.

Her body shakes with what could be laughter, but probably isn’t.

“We’re really fucked up, huh?”

_“Yeah.”_

_\--_

Donut is the next person to approach her once she leaves Wash’s room. Actually, he all but ambushes her in the hallway.

“Agent Carolina!” He latches onto her arm, eyes teary. “You won’t _believe_ what happened! I was talking to Ms. Andrews, and she’s such a nice woman, really, and-”

Carolina tunes him out, standing patiently and nodding at what seem to be the appropriate moments.

“- And he wants to get a divorce! Dylan was so torn up about it! Honestly, I just want to find that man and pound him into the ground-” Ms. Andrews is getting a divorce? She should probably… Express her condolences? What do you say in that situation? Donut must catch on to her cluelessness, because he gives her a knowing look.

“You should talk to her! Be comforting! You could have a girl’s night, even!”

“...Sure.” She says, with no particular intention to follow up on it. Donut pats her lightly on the arm.

“Well, see ya!”

\--

She leaves Chorus’s largest hospital to a cloudy sky and cold wind. Her armour is back on, helmet in the crook of her elbow.

Caboose, Tucker, and the entirety of Red Team stand on the other side of the road.

Locus is there as well, only connected to the group through Grif, who is talking to him about something. Tucker looks away when he sees her, but Caboose waves animatedly. He jumps up and down, making small cracks in the pavement.

Simmons appears to be correcting Grif about something, but still trying to avoid Locus’ gaze by standing behind Sarge.

 

Smiling, Carolina crosses the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here we are! therell probably be another fic in this series? some dylina maybe?

**Author's Note:**

> wooo here we go


End file.
